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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29893524">see what's there</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish'>elumish</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>to relish a love-song [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Female Jason Todd, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:41:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,044</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29893524</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Living with Bruce Wayne is weirdly not that different than staying-the-night with Bruce Wayne. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alfred Pennyworth &amp; Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth &amp; Jason Todd, Jason Todd &amp; Bruce Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>to relish a love-song [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799632</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>213</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>see what's there</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Living with Bruce Wayne is weirdly not that different than staying-the-night with Bruce Wayne. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay expects him to put her to work helping Mr. Pennyworth clean and cook and do all the house-chores that Willis always expected her mom to do while he sat around drinking. But instead, the day after they finish signing all the paperwork that says that she’s going to stay with him and if she doesn’t leave he’ll give her a ridiculous amount of money at the end, he calls her into his scary office and says, “I think we should talk about school.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can read,” Jay says, a little defensively. “And I can do math and shit, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please try to watch your language,” Bruce Wayne says, and she thinks that maybe he was told once that parents should say that. Willis sometimes told her to watch her fucking mouth when he was smacking her around. “Now that I’m your guardian, I’m responsible for your education. Without knowing your full name, school records will be difficult, but I will reach out to Gotham Academy about starting you there, perhaps when the new semester starts. In the meantime, I was thinking we could start you on some self study, so we can figure out what level you’re at.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay has no illusions that she’ll still be here whenever the new semester of Gotham Academy will start, but still she has to ask, “Are you taking the money out of the money you’re giving me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Am I…?” Bruce Wayne blinks at her, and she’s reminded that he’s notoriously kind of stupid. Maybe he’s been drinking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The tuition money,” Jay says patiently. “If Gotham Academy takes me, does that money count against what you’re giving me in my trust? Because if it does I’d rather just go to public school.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He frowns a little, and she decides he’s definitely been drinking, because nobody could possibly be this bad at understanding basic life things sober. Finally he says, “No, of course not. I paid for Dick to go there, and I would pay for you to go there as well. The money in the trust is yours as long as you stay until a safe place for you is found or until you’re eighteen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eighteen?” Jay asks faintly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you stay here until adulthood, it’ll be a nice bit of starting money when you go off to college.” He looks briefly pensive. “I’ll have to set up a college trust if Imani finds somewhere else for you before you’re eighteen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you a crazy person?” she asks before she can stop herself. “Are you trying to give me </span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span> money? Because I’m still not going to suck your dick for you, even if you paid for me to go to some ridiculously expensive college.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now Burce Wayne just looks pained and maybe a little pitying, which she hates, because she doesn’t want this stupid rich guy to pity her. “I can promise you, I will never ask you for sexual favors. Anything I give you, anything I do for you, it’s because I hope you grow up healthy and safe.” He smiles. “As you probably know, I lost my parents when I was young, and if it hadn’t been for Alfred, I don’t think I would have survived to adulthood. So maybe I have a bit of a soft spot for Gotham’s orphan boys.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, if Jay ever needed another reason not to tell him about her lack of maleness, there’s that right there. She’s not sure she believes him, but if it is the truth, he probably doesn’t have as much of a soft spot for Gotham’s orphan girls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Also, he might not be interested in sex with teenage boys, but most men want it from teenage girls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Regardless,” Bruce Wayne says, clearing his throat a bit, “we will need to figure out your education for right now. I’d also like you to go to a doctor for a check-up--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Jay says, maybe a little too sharply. “I’m not going to have some creep poke at my stomach or whatever. I’m fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce Wayne’s eyebrows draw down and his mouth sort of compresses, but he says, “We will hold off on that for now, then, but not for forever. But I will have Alfred take your weight and height, just so we have that on record. No touching, nobody poking at your stomach, just you standing on a scale and having him mark your height.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay still doesn’t really like that, but she knows how to pick her battles, so she shrugs and doesn’t argue. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He beams at her. “Great. And given that you’ll be studying at home for a while, I want to make sure you do leave the house regularly. Dick does--did gymnastics.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay can get the message there, so she says, “I can learn gymnastics.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce Wayne opens his mouth then closes it and frowns and says, “I’ll set that up, then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce Wayne goes out a lot at night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not like Jay goes and checks on his bedroom, but she wakes up when his door closes really early in the morning, and it’s not like he’s getting up then because she doesn’t see him out until later in the morning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s pretty sure he has a girlfriend, or maybe a bunch of girlfriends. That’s what the rumors always said. And maybe he just doesn’t want to bring them around because it’s weird to have a kid around or something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She just doesn’t get why he goes out </span>
  <em>
    <span>every night </span>
  </em>
  <span>but also comes back early instead of just staying over like a normal person. It’s not like someone is going to kick </span>
  <em>
    <span>Bruce Wayne</span>
  </em>
  <span> out of their bed after sleeping with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then he shows up one morning with a black eye as bad as her mom ever got, and it all makes sense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is your girlfriend </span>
  <em>
    <span>hitting</span>
  </em>
  <span> you?” Jay demands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce Wayne looks up at her from where he’s sipping his coffee and grimacing, then says, “What?” He touches the bruise on his face like he’d forgotten about it, as though a black eye doesn’t hurt like a motherfucker, then says, unconvincingly, “No, I walked into something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yeah, like her mom kept falling down stairs. “Is it your boyfriend? ‘Cause it’s the 21st Century, you know. People are allowed to have boyfriends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce Wayne looks like he wants to smile but doesn’t, and then he says, “Thank you. But no, I don’t have a boyfriend, and nobody is hitting me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right,” Jay says. “Yeah. ‘m not going to judge you, but maybe you shouldn’t be sleeping with someone who hits you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not--” Bruce Wayne breaks off, shaking his head. He goes back to drinking his coffee.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s in denial. Her mom was, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes her feel a little bad for him, actually. Notorious idiot is one thing, for a billionaire, but even he doesn’t deserve someone beating him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The house has a whole fucking library.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A library.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Holy shit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are all of these first editions that must be worth a gazillion dollars, but there are also soft worn paperbacks with cracked spines that open easily, like the books at the public library, read over and over.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The best kind of book.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She finds a copy of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Much Ado About Nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span> like that, and she’s never read it before and Shakespeare is really hard but she curls up in one of the big arm chairs and starts reading it. She tries to read it silently, but Shakespeare is the kind of thing you need to read out loud, because it’s just too complicated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it just sounds better out loud.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wouldn’t be sitting in here, but Bruce is off at work and Alfred told her she should good entertain herself, and she’s not sure if she’s allowed outside and doesn’t want to piss them off this early.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their contract says that if he kicks her out she gets the money.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay’s reading her way through, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>But I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be better prepared for an answer</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” when the door opens and Alfred says, “I see you have found the library.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay jerks out of the chair and hides the book behind her back, even though obviously he knows she’s been reading, but he just carries his tray over to the table next to her. There’s a mug on it, and a bowl filled with grapes, and a glass of water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I expect you will not spill anything,” Alfred says, in the way that means </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t spill anything</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “May I enquire as to what you are reading?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay doesn’t really want to tell him, because adults never believe that she can read anything interesting, but she shows him the book anyway, keeping her finger in her place so she doesn’t lose where she is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Much Ado</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Alfred says. “One of the comedies. And how are you finding it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay shrugs. “‘s okay. Better than </span>
  <em>
    <span>Romeo and Juliet.</span>
  </em>
  <span> They’re really dumb in </span>
  <em>
    <span>Romeo and Juliet</span>
  </em>
  <span>. This one at least is kind of funny.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am glad that you are enjoying it, Master Jay,” Alfred says. “I must confess a fondness for Shakespeare. If you ever wish for help in reading one of the plays, I would be honored to assist you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks,” Jay says, even though she doesn’t at all intend to take him up on that. His job is already hard enough without her bugging him about Shakespeare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alfred nods. “There is hot chocolate for you, balanced with a healthy snack. I will call you in for dinner when it is ready, but you are free to come to the kitchen if you find yourself hungry before then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another thing Jay is definitely not doing. She’s heard enough stories of what happens to kids in foster care when they sneak food.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s still not sure why she hasn’t been told to do any chores, and she’s kind of afraid she’s supposed to be doing chores and they’re going to get mad at her for not doing it, so she asks, “Should I be...cleaning or something? Or doing laundry? Nobody has told me what to do yet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, Master Jay,” Alfred says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can cook,” Jay offers, feeling a little desperate, because if she keeps not doing anything Bruce Wayne is eventually going to figure it out and get rid of her. She’s not surprised he hasn’t realized yet, because from what she’s heard he’s not really the sharpest crayon in the box, but he’ll figure it out eventually.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alfred blinks at her, and then he says, “If you would like to take part in the cooking, I would be happy for you to assist me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can make breakfast,” she says quickly. “I’m up early, and I know how to make eggs and--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You may </span>
  <em>
    <span>assist</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Alfred says, a bit sharply, and she shuts her mouth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns and walks out of the room, and she mutters, “Shit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She makes it a point to help with meals after that, because she doesn’t want Bruce Wayne to be able to say that she isn’t pulling her weight. Alfred doesn’t let her do much and never lets her touch the knives--he’s probably afraid she’s going to stab him or something--but she washes vegetables and measures things and mixes things and makes sure she doesn’t fuck up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of all the chores, she </span>
  <em>
    <span>likes</span>
  </em>
  <span> cooking--it doesn’t smell bad like cleaning does, with all the chemicals that make her nose burn, and she gets something useful at the end of it. And Alfred’s food always tastes really good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The weirdest thing is that Alfred doesn’t eat with them. She really wishes he would, because dinner with just Bruce Wayne is weird, and she’s also kind of afraid that Alfred never actually consumes food. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d think he was some sort of meta, except everyone knows that Batman doesn’t let metas live in Gotham.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But dinners with Bruce Wayne are really weird.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s the one meal that she has with him, semi-reliably, and he sits there and makes conversation and just is </span>
  <em>
    <span>nice</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How are you doing on your schoolwork?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay looks up from the mashed potatoes she’s mashing down on her plate, then says, “Okay, I guess. The reading’s easy.” The math is less easy, but she doesn’t want to admit that to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gives her a smile that looks like it’s supposed to be reassuring. “Well, let me know if you have any questions or want any help. Dick--” He breaks off, looking annoyed, then says, “Dick struggled with the reading, in the beginning, so we would read together.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay wants to hear more about the mysterious Dick who was Bruce Wayne’s kid but then decided to leave, but she doesn’t want to ask and make Bruce Wayne mad. It seems like something happened, there, and she knows better than to poke at sore spots.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Willis always got pissy when her mom mentioned stuff that he didn’t like talking about, like money or him having a real job, and Jay would sometimes have to get in the middle of them, because her mom wasn’t good at taking a hit when she got really bad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Bruce Wayne doesn’t seem like a particularly physical person, but he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>big</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and his hands are huge, and a hit from him would </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If he hits her, she’s not going to leave. Men all hit. But if he beats her, or if he tries to touch her, she’s out of here. Fuck all of that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She asks Alfred for a smartphone to look something up on, because she figure rich people like them must have one, and he comes back with an entire fucking laptop, which he just hands her, saying, “There is no password, but feel free to set one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay can’t believe he just </span>
  <em>
    <span>handed her</span>
  </em>
  <span> a </span>
  <em>
    <span>laptop</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but she’s not going to argue, and he doesn’t say anything even when she carries it up to the room she’s staying in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It has a power cord, which she plugs into the wall, and from there she can sit on the bed with it in front of her, and she turns it on and waits for it to start up and then opens the internet and googles Dick Grayson.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knows how to use computers, more or less--they never had one, obviously, but her school had them while they were there, and they learned typing and stuff, even though she’s still really slow at it because she has to find each key one at a time. It seems like it would be so much easier if it was in alphabetical order so people would know where the keys were.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gets a whole ton of answers, some of which are super gross, and then she realizes she needs to put quotes around the name so she stops getting literal dick pics, and then she finds that he has an </span>
  <em>
    <span>actual fucking Wikipedia page</span>
  </em>
  <span>, which she thought only famous people had. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s less there than she expected, but there’s enough for her to get that his parents were in the circus and then they died during a stunt that went long, and it happened right in front of Bruce Wayne so he decided to adopt Dick Grayson, which is apparently a thing that rich people do. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s not a lot about his parents, but there’s enough for her to know that they were Romani, which is apparently the nicer word for gypsy, which the internet says is a bad word. That was even his first language, apparently, which seems kind of cool but also kind of hard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wonders if he ever felt lonely, being something that nobody around him is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t think she’ll ever meet him, but she googles how to say hi in Romani anyway, just in case.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she’s done looking up stuff about Dick Grayson she googles Bruce Wayne and reads about him for a while, and it’s mostly stuff she knows because he’s super famous in Gotham and everyone knows The Story of the Waynes, but there’s some interesting shit in there about how he fucked off for a while.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a picture of him standing with Dick Grayson, and they look happy. Not even the fake happy of when you’re trying to pretend but it shows in your eyes, but real happy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wonders what happens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The internet doesn’t say, so she wipes her internet history and closes everything and shuts off the computer and carries it and the power cord that she coils up back down to the kitchen to give back to Alfred.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s chopping up potatoes, and he frowns at her when she asks, “Where should I put this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You may keep it in your room if you would like,” he says. “Alternatively, the library is an acceptable place to leave it, as long as it is not left on the floor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She would never leave a </span>
  <em>
    <span>computer</span>
  </em>
  <span> on the </span>
  <em>
    <span>floor</span>
  </em>
  <span>. But anyway, “I’m done with it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is yours to keep,” Alfred says, and keeps chopping potatoes. He’s looking at her while doing it, which makes her a little nervous because she would definitely cut herself doing that, but he seems totally confident. Maybe he is a meta. “Mr. Wayne will doubtless purchase you a newer laptop when he realizes you are using such an old one, but for the moment, that one is yours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a </span>
  <em>
    <span>laptop</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she says, because she’s not sure he’s getting that fact.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he just nods and says. “I am sure you will find it very useful in your studies.” Finally, he looks back down at what he’s chopping, then sweeps all the little cubes of potato into a bowl. “I am making chicken pot pie,” he says, and looks back up at her. She feels awkward, suddenly, standing there clutching the laptop. “Would you like to help?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Return your laptop to your room, then, and then rejoin me here, and I will show you how to laminate pastry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jay does as she’s told, wondering the whole way why they’re going to cover pastry in plastic.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have a couple more bits started, including "Jay finds out some important information about Bruce Wayne" and "Bruce finds out some important information about Jay Todd", and I'm planning on a bit where she meets Dick at some point. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to write in this world.</p><p>Take a breath and keep going.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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